[Bryan Fuller]

All offseason I've been dickering around with targeting data trying to find something predictive about Michigan's receivers. Here's what I came up with:

Big makes click (WRs with <10 targets excluded)

What you're seeing is RYPR data for guys listed as sophomores on 2005-'14 rosters. I couldn't be precise because that doesn't account for redshirts, but whenever I came across a double I went with the later year. RYPR is an imperfect feelingsball stat by Bill Connelly that tries to tie in a receiver's targeting data and the nature of his offense with his raw production. The big yellow diamond around 60 targets and 70 RYPR is Darboh last year (the other diamond in the mess of barely targeted dudes is Chesson).

What I like about the chart above is it's the first one that seems to put the guys who wound up really productive dramatically above average. Gallon and Manningham are floating well above the dotted line, Greg Mathews is way below it, and Darboh, Funchess (who spent part of that season as a TE), and Roundtree are kinda on it, despite a big spread in number of targets.

The Michigan sample's small, but the vast majority of guys above dotted line as sophomores wound up NFL picks. RYPR/targets in fact was more predictive than RYPR itself. NFL draft picks averaged 1.43 RYPR/Tgts versus 1.05 for those not drafted. The graph isn't dramatic (again click to make it big) but it's at least useful for setting a baseline:

I noted some outliers among the undrafted: Jarrett Boykin (3.05 in 2009) spent three years on the Packers, starting for half of 2013. Billy Pittman had his big year with Vince Young but had a kind of palsy, got hit with one of the dumbest NCAA penalties ever (7 games for sharing his friend's car for the summer) and was an old man already by his combine. And Da'Rick Rogers left Tennessee after failing three drug tests, was the best receiver in FCS for a year, and has bounced around practice rosters since. As for those still playing, they're among the best in FBS: Tyler Boyd (Pitt), Pharoh Cooper (S Car), Will Fuller (ND), Michael Thomas (OSU) and Corey Coleman (Baylor) are all juniors this year. Sanity test: passed.

Remember these guys are all getting at least 10 targets as sophomores for a Power 5 or BCS school. Since that pack doesn't bother spreading out until 20 targets let's reset and from there and see what it says about about the future NFL draft picks versus the future pros in something else.

Simply getting usage at Power 5/BCS team at this point gives you better than a 1 in 4 chance of getting drafted, about the same, we learned in previous studies, as a 4-star recruit. If Darboh was a guy who stood out in that stat I'd be excited, but he was pretty average. Still I'm interested to see what happened to the guys in Darboh's vicinity.

[After the Jump: guys who looked like Darboh]

Darboh-Like Objects:

I took out a subsection of sophomore receivers within +/-10 RYPR of Darboh. There were 45 initially but I removed 11 slot receiver types. We're left with 33 comps, four of whom disappeared for injury or personal reasons, and 12 of whom were NFL draft picks. Some of the guys you're probably familiar with are Brian Robiskie from Ohio State, and LSU's Early Doucet.

So?

So there were outliers and more than a few guys who wound up as 500-yard possession receivers. Justin Hunter probably would have had 1,000 yards if he didn't miss 2/3rds of his sophomore year. The bulk of guys saw moderate improvement but never cracked 1,000 yards some of those who did had RG3 throwing to them. But there are some strong success stories out of Darboh-like sophomore years. Juron Criner was All-Pac 10 as a junior. Chris Givens is on the list. Slice out the incompletes and here's what the junior versions of guys like Darboh looked like:

That's an average of 70 targets, 643 yards and a RYPR of 92.8. Reasonable upside would be Brian Robiskie. A 2010 Junior Hemingway is the baseline; we'll take it.